Systems and Communications Commons^™

Conductive Concrete For Electromagnetic Shielding – Methods For Development And Evaluation, Aaron P. Krause

Department of Computer Electronics and Engineering: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This research investigates the development and evaluation innovative methods for the use of conductive concrete as an electromagnetic shield. New testing methods are developed to determine the best conductive components to use in the design of a concrete mixture for shielding that shows the best promise. The conductive concrete mixture has the potential to provide electromagnetic shielding that is cost-effective in terms of construction, operation, and maintenance compared to conventional approaches. Two testing methods, Small Sample Testing and Large Slab Testing, are developed based on standardized testing methods that have been modified for the testing of conductive concrete mixtures. As …

Development And Implementation Of A Calibration Procedure For Complex Impedance Spectrum Measurements With Applications To Embedded Battery Health Monitoring And Management Systems, William H. Morrison

Master's Theses

Energy storage devices such as rechargeable Lithium ion batteries are assuming an increasingly prominent role in society, covering applications from electric / hybrid electric vehicles to personal portable electronics. In response to this increasing demand, technologies that monitor battery health and remaining useful life have developed. One such system is the Smart Battery Status Monitor (SBSM), developed by the Idaho National Laboratory, Montana Tech and Qualtech Systems, Inc. The SBSM utilizes impedance spectrum measurements using a subsystem called the Impedance Measurement Box (IMB). The impedance measurements are complex quantities (having both a resistive and a reactive component) and are made …

Energy Efficiency Analysis And Optimization On Mobile Video Wireless Delivery, Jianxin Sun

Department of Computer Electronics and Engineering: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Micro-electronic industry has been boosting the capability of wireless mobile devices on full-scale. However, battery, as the only power source of most mobile devices, is experiencing a relatively slow development. Therefore, how to optimally utilize the limited battery energy on mobile devices under a predefined performance requirement becomes a critical issue. On the other hand, it is still unclear that how the battery capacity consumption is allocated on different working pattern of a specific video codec under various tempo-spatial scales and parameters, which has posed a design challenge on power management on multimedia communication system. Furthermore, an optimization method is …

Smart Home Prototype, Logistics & Planning, David G. Guzman^, Virgilio Gonzalez*

COURI Symposium Abstracts, Spring 2012

No abstract provided.

Smart Grid Communications, Christopher W. Asbery

Theses and Dissertations--Electrical and Computer Engineering

Smart grid technologies are starting to be the future of electric power systems. These systems are giving the utilities detailed information about their systems in real time. One of the most challenging things of implementing smart grid applications is employing the communications into the systems. Understanding the available communications can help ease the transition to these smart grid applications. Many of the utility personnel are spending too much time trying to figure out which communication is better for their application or applications. So this thesis presents the different communication types available with discussing the different attributes in which these communication …

Wireless Passive Power Transfer Using Wire Antennas, Sheng Da Zhang

Electrical Engineering

This project tests and analyzes the efficiency of directional and omnidirectional antennas in wireless power transfer for charging. The project demonstrates the steps of construction and properties of dipole, monopole, and Yagi Uda antennas. A low power high frequency DC rectifier circuit converts the received RF power from the antenna and stored it as DC voltage on a capacitor. The receiver circuit also estimates the power received by the antenna. Wireless RF power transmission proves to be inefficient for short distances. The best efficiencies of the antennas were under 50% even at 0.1meter. The near field attenuation starts at around …

Wireless Sensor Network For Energy And Environmental Monitoring: Helping Old Buildings Go Green, Jacob Power

Electrical Engineering

Today, the rising cost of energy and social trend of “going green” has put increasing pressure on commercial property owners to improve the efficiency of their investments.  There is good reason for this, too.  In the State of California, office buildings represent the single largest user of energy in the commercial sector.  This project consisted of the design, implementation, construction, testing, and deployment of a wireless sensor network for energy and environmental monitoring in retrofit commercial office installations.  The analyzed data generated by this system can be used by building management and owners to identify areas of inefficiency within the …

Transparent Patch Antenna On A-Si Thin Film Glass Solar Module, Maria Roo Ons, S. Shynu, Max Ammann, Sarah Mccormack, Brian Norton

Articles

An optically transparent microstrip patch mounted on the surface of a commercially available solar module is proposed. The patch comprises a thin sheet of clear polyester with a conductive coating. The amorphous silicon solar cells in the module are used as both photovoltaic generator and antenna ground plane. The proposed structure provides a peak gain of 3.96 dBi in the 3.4-3.8 GHz range without significantly compromising the light transmission in the module. A comparison between copper and transparent conductors is made in terms of antenna and solar performance. The proposed technique is considerably simpler that previous integration approaches.

Economic Optimization Of Offshore Wind Farms Using The Geometric Algorithm, Mahidhar Nandigam

Electrical & Computer Engineering Theses & Dissertations

The research project related to this thesis focuses on the optimization of electrical systems for offshore wind farms for a given capacity. The optimal design and planning is a critical issue for developing cost effectively Offshore Wind Farms in energy systems. The Geometric Optimization Algorithms approach has been adopted to develop an optimization program, where the main components of the electrical system of an offshore wind farm and key technical specifications are used as parameters to be optimized for a minimum cost with necessary constraints. The effectiveness of the optimization program can be evaluated with real-time comparison between offshore wind …

Networks - I: An Instantiation Of Way Point Routing For Mobile Ad Hoc Networks, Waseem M. Arain, Sayeed Ghani

International Conference on Information and Communication Technologies

Mobile ad hoc networks are increasingly finding their existence in the marketplace heading to a new paradigm of pervasive computing. However there are many areas open to research in the field. Due to node mobility resulting in an ever-changing network topology, conventional routing methods cannot be applied in MANETS. Therefore, this is one of the core areas of research. Researchers are challenged to design protocols that can potentially scale to anything from thousand to tens of thousands of nodes and to reduce the route discovery latency. In this paper a different instantiation of way point routing (WPR) model is proposed, …

Randomcast: An Energy-Efficient Communication Scheme For Mobile Ad Hoc Networks, Sunho Lim, Chansu Yu, Chita R. Das

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

In mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs), every node overhears every data transmission occurring in its vicinity and thus, consumes energy unnecessarily. However, since some MANET routing protocols such as dynamic source routing (DSR) collect route information via overhearing, they would suffer if they are used in combination with 802.11 PSM. Allowing no overhearing may critically deteriorate the performance of the underlying routing protocol, while unconditional overhearing may offset the advantage of using PSM. This paper proposes a new communication mechanism, called RandomCast, via which a sender can specify the desired level of overhearing, making a prudent balance between energy and …

Low Power Fft Processor Design Considerations For Ofdm Communications, David Layne Rushforth

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Today's emerging communication technologies require fast processing as well as efficient use of resources. This project specifically addresses the power-efficient design of an FFT processor as it relates to OFDM communications such as cognitive radio. The Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) processor is what enables the efficient modulation in OFDM. As the FFT processor is the most computationally intensive component in OFDM communication, the power efficiency improvement of this component can have great impacts on the overall system. These impacts are significant considering the number of mobile and remote communication devices that rely on limited battery-powered operation. This project explores current …

Significance Of Logic Synthesis In Fpga-Based Design Of Image And Signal Processing Systems, Mariusz Rawski, Henry Selvaraj, Bogdan J. Falkowski, Tadeusz Luba

Electrical & Computer Engineering Faculty Research

This chapter, taking FIR filters as an example, presents the discussion on efficiency of different implementation methodologies of DSP algorithms targeting modern FPGA architectures. Nowadays, programmable technology provides the possibility to implement digital systems with the use of specialized embedded DSP blocks. However, this technology gives the designer the possibility to increase efficiency of designed systems by exploitation of parallelisms of implemented algorithms. Moreover, it is possible to apply special techniques, such as distributed arithmetic (DA). Since in this approach, general-purpose multipliers are replaced by combinational LUT blocks, it is possible to construct digital filters of very high performance. Additionally, …

Socio-Economic Impacts Of Computer Viruses In Tanzania, M Victor

Tanzania Journal of Engineering and Technology (TJET)

This paper reports on a research project conducted with an objective of identifying and assessing various approaches used by different computer users (Management, System Administrators and end users) in Tanzania to combat computer viruses (CVs), and to assess users' awareness level on CVs. Specifically, the study aimed at assessing the awareness level on CVs to the Tanzanian business community; analyze the socio -economic impact caused by CVs in Tanzania and; assess existing methods, capacity and limitations on controlling CVs in Tanzania. Data was collected using both questionnaires and interview from financial institutions such as NBC and BOT, and telecommunications sector …

Review Of The Product Development Process And Information Flow In The Manufacturing Industry: Problems And A Possible Wav Forward, E Opiyo

Tanzania Journal of Engineering and Technology (TJET)

No abstract provided.

Application Of Vibrational Techniques In Determination Of Dynamic Properties Of Agricultural Products-State Of The Arton Of Vibrational Techniques In Determination Of Dynamic Properties Of Agricultural Products-State Of The Art, Silas Kajuna

Tanzania Journal of Engineering and Technology (TJET)

Vibration is one of the techniques employed in the determination of dynamic properties of fruits and vegetables. It entails generation of a mechanical or acoustic vibrational signal which is propagated through the flesh of the agricultural material. A transducer is either attached or held close to the specimen to monitor the propagation of the signal through the specimen. The manner in which the signal is transmitted through the material is analyzed, and the dynamic properties of the specimen which relate to its firmness or its internal being are derived. The technique has been around for the past 30 years or …

A Study Of Transconductance Degradation In Hemt Using A Self-Consistent Boltzmann-Poisson-Schrodinger Solver, Rahim Khoie

Electrical & Computer Engineering Faculty Research

A self-consistent Boltzmann-Poisson-Schrödinger Solver is used to study the transconductance degradation in high electron mobility transistor (HEMT), which has extensively been reported by both experimental [1]-[8] and computational [9]-[ 13] researchers. As the gate voltage of a HEMT device is increased, its transconductance increases until it reaches a peak value, beyond which, the transconductance is degraded rather sharply with further increase in applied gate bias. We previously reported a two-subband self-consistent Boltzmann-Poisson- Schrödinger Solver for HEMT. [14] We further incorporated an additional self-consistency by calculating field-dependent, energy-dependent intersubband and intrasubband scattering rates due to ionized impurities and polar optical phonons.[15] …

A Self-Consistent Numerical Method For Simulation Of Quantum Transport In High Electron Mobility Transistor; Part 1: The Boltzmann-Poisson-Schrodinger Solver, Rahim Khoie

Electrical & Computer Engineering Faculty Research

A self-consistent Boltzmann-Poisson-Schrödinger solver for High Electron Mobility Transistor is presented. The quantization of electrons in the quantum well normal to the heterojunction is taken into account by solving the two higher moments of Boltzmann equation along with the Schrödinger and Poisson equations, self-consistently. The Boltzmann transport equation in the form of a current continuity equation and an energy balance equation are solved to obtain the transient and steady-state transport behavior. The numerical instability problems associated with the simulator are presented, and the criteria for smooth convergence of the solutions are discussed. The current-voltage characteristics, transconductance, gate capacitance, and unity-gain …

Analysis And Development Of A Switched Capacitor Power Supply, John Richard Hackworth

Electrical & Computer Engineering Theses & Dissertations

The combination of a switched capacitor network and switching power supply techniques can result in a transformer less regulated DC power supply that is small, relatively simple, and efficient. In addition, the output of such a system could be operated over a wide range of common mode voltages. Multiple switched capacitor supplies could be stacked to achieve voltage multiplication.

Although the output of a system of this type is a continuous function, the internal operation must be analyzed in finite time elements. This numerical analysis will be shown in both a mathematical approach and a computer model.